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Lisbon announced as host city of the next European edition of Velo-city 2021

19 February 2019

Another Polis member, Lisbon, is to host the next European edition of the annual Velo-city cycling conference in 2021. This year, the conference will be hosted by Dublin in June 2019.

Today the European Cycllists' Federation and Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, Portugal, signed the collaboration agreement officially marking Lisbon as next to host the Velo-city conference series.

While we're still waiting to know more about the motivations that propelled Lisbon on top of the cycling world, here are some key facts:

In recent years, Lisbon has been investing in active mobility, in particular by building new cycling infrastructure, traffic calming programs and collaborating with bicycle-related associations.

"Gira. Bicicletas de Lisboa" is the city's shared bicycle service. After a pilot test carried out in Parque das Nações, the service is being phased in different areas of Lisbon. In total, 1 410 bicycles are planned to be spread across 140 stations located in different parts of the city.

In September, 2017 100 pedelecs launched at 10 stations to start.

In the last 10 years, the cycling network in Lisbon has undergone an unprecedented boost, from just 10km of cycling routes to around 90km, as well as 6 new cyclopedonal bridges to overcome physical obstacles, which make cycling the latest mobility tool in the city.

By 2021, the network of bicycle lanes is expected to expand to at least 200km.